Eisenhower vs. Warren: The Battle for Civil Rights and Liberties

Review

We are living in tumultuous political times. Regardless of one’s partisan views, there can be no debate that after the 2016 election, governmental norms as understood by most of the democratic world have been turned on their head. The list is endless, from constant alarms of “breaking news” to Twitter storms from the left and right. As Bob Dylan announced in 1964, “The Times They Are a Changin’.”I make this observation in discussing EISENHOWER VS. WARREN for a simple purpose. Decades from now, historians will begin to study the administration of the current President. Questions will be asked, answers will be offered, and revisionists will take the field. It will be an interesting discussion, and I wish I could be here to read what they say.

James F. Simon’s parallel study of the lives of two remarkable figures in American history reminds us of a far different time in our nation. EISENHOWER VS. WARREN is a behind-the-public-scenes look at the post-World War II era of our nation when the battle for civil rights was fought in several venues. President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Chief Justice Earl Warren viewed the issue through different life experiences. Simon has written extensively on the relationship between the Supreme Court and presidents. His books have covered the political and legal rivalries from Thomas Jefferson and John Marshall to William Rehnquist and George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He always shows an amazing ability to pinpoint the conflicts and compromises that shape important moments in our nation’s history.

"EISENHOWER VS. WARREN reminds us of an era when Supreme Court justices owed their allegiance to the Constitution they interpreted, not the president or political party who nominated them."

Earl Warren led a remarkable political life. He rose through California politics as a local prosecutor, state attorney general and governor. In the 1940s, California election laws allowed candidates to run in multiple primaries. Warren occasionally ran for office in both Democrat and Republican primary elections, and won nominations on both party lines. He built a remarkable record in office, governing in ways that would be anathema to modern-day Republicans. He endorsed spending on social services without raising taxes and built a budget surplus in California that exceeded $150 million. Nominated for vice president with Thomas E. Dewey in 1948, he was swept up in the Truman upset. America might have been a far different nation had that election result been as forecast by political pundits.

Dwight D. Eisenhower was a war hero, not a politician. He was not the first military president, but his road to the White House took an interesting path. In the years after World War II, the popular Eisenhower avoided partisan politics with such skill that he could have been nominated and elected president as either a Democrat or Republican. President Truman offered to step aside in 1948 and support him for the nomination. Eisenhower declined and spent the first post-World War II years as president of Columbia University. That he lacked a sense of political skill was evident after he was nominated for president by the Republicans in 1952. His advisors thought he should offer the vice-presidential nomination to Richard Nixon. Eisenhower was surprised that he had that choice, thinking that the convention would decide who his running mate would be.

Simon’s account of the Eisenhower-Warren connection avoids discussion of the famous deal between the two men during the 1952 Republican National Convention. History has suggested that in exchange for Warren’s support for the nomination, he was promised the first Supreme Court vacancy. Simon maintains that the decision to nominate Warren was free of any promise and was based on careful reflection. Regardless, Warren became Chief Justice, and history records that his effort to secure a unanimous court in Brown v. Board of Education, the school desegregation case, changed America forever. Simon notes that, even though Eisenhower was not enthused about that decision and perhaps had even inappropriately lobbied Warren against it, his first public response was to support it. “The Supreme Court has spoken, and I am sworn to uphold the constitutional process in the country,” he told reporters two days after the decision. “And I will obey.” Presently, those words are not part of our political vocabulary.

History is an important teacher. EISENHOWER VS. WARREN reminds us of an era when Supreme Court justices owed their allegiance to the Constitution they interpreted, not the president or political party who nominated them. Simon believes that a political Supreme Court destroys the fabric of our country. But that fabric can be mended, and the pattern for the mending remains part of our national history.